Multi-element Correlator & Beamformer using OpenCL on FPGA Accelerator Card

Radio Interferometry refers to the process of combining signals from multiple antennas to form an image of the radio source in the sky. Radio-astronomical signal processing using array telescopes is computationally challenging and poses strict performance and energy-efficiency requirements. The GMRT is one of the largest arrays with many antennas working in the metre wavelength. The ongoing developmental activities for expansion of the GMRT (called eGMRT) demand a many fold increase in the computational cost and power budget while providing an increased collecting area as well as field-of-view by building more antennas each equipped with phased array feed (PAF). Recent FPGAs provide higher Flops per Watt making it an energy-efficient hardware platform suitable for projects like the eGMRT requiring a high compute-to-power ratio. However, the traditional programming model for FPGAs is a primary drawback of using FPGAs for high-performance computing. Aided by the recent advancement of parallel programming on FPGAs using Open Computing Language (OpenCL), allows FPGAs to be used as general purpose accelerators like GPUs. The aim of this project is to design an energy-efficient multi-element correlator and beamformer on an FPGA Accelerator Card using OpenCL and to explore the possibilities of using such systems for real-time, number-crunching tasks.